


we were the kings and queens (of promise)

by plinys



Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: Betrayal, Character Study, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were children once. Years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were the kings and queens (of promise)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



They were children once.

_Years ago._

Sneaking into places they weren’t allowed; boardrooms and private chambers, in rooms with white walls and spaces too big or too formal to feel comfortable in.

In those long forgotten spaces they played pretending.

They’d walk among the empty chairs with heads held high and imagine that they might be filled.

Some days they were preachers, retelling the lessons they had learned from their Reverends and teachers, speaking God’s name in hushed sacred tones, not worrying if their games were blasphemous in nature.

Other times they were warriors, returned from a great battle and meant to be honored, she liked those days the most, as she pressed an imaginary honor to his chest, where one day a real one would be pinned.

They were other things too, from doctors to teachers to judges and juries.

But the most common of all their games, would be when the pretend that they would be _kings and queens._

With paper crowns set on heads that would never hold a proper one, they held an imaginary court, promising to be just and kind, to protect their people and to look out for each other.

She wonders where those promises went, faded and forgotten by the inevitable passing of time, as she stands there in that very same room that they played their games, staring down the barrel of a gun and fighting to keep her voice even, “you could have been better, Jack,” she says, wishing with all her heart that they could go back to those days when they had been naught more than innocent children playing pretend.

But those were just children’s games and reality was not nearly as kind to her.

Reality has never been kind to her.

There’s something almost calming about exile.

For the first time in her life she’s free of the courts, of the politics, there’s nobody to smile for, nobody with hidden agendas (or not anywhere that she can see).

Breathing is easier here.

_Usually._

There are other days.

Days when she misses her home so much that she makes herself sick, though she’d blame it on morning sickness if there were anybody around to ask.

Days where she lays awake at night thinking of David, worrying about where he’s gone, wishing that he would appear one day to steal her away like she had always dreamed.

Days in which she spends hours begging guards that barely pay her any mind for some news of back home, of her mother or her father, she insists- the words _of her brother_ never pass her lips, his betrayal too fresh in her mind.

She had imagined that she would dream of it, dream of the day she had nearly died at the hands of the person that she had been born beside, but she never does.

In her dreams they’re children once more, innocent and pure knowing nothing of the world around them, like the child that grows inside of her.

Her fingers dig into her skin, on late nights when she stares into the mirror and isn’t sure whether to be happy or sad, about the way her body changes shape.

She’s happy on the days when she remembers what this child will be, a sign of the love between her and David.

She sad during the night when she worries what the child will become, what future awaits him.

The night she gives birth is a cold and dark one.

She tries not to see that as a sign from God.

Instead she focuses on steadying her breathing, and staying alive, as a nursemaid helps her through a process that even as a child she had never thought to imagine.  

The war that comes in the following month is as painful as that birth, and she clutches the babe to her breast at night squeezes her eyes shut and wishes that she could play pretend once more.

If she had the chance to go back she would have made sure that they never tried to be something more than they were.

She didn’t feel like a princess anymore.

She didn’t want to.

Though having a choice in that regard was something she’d never been blessed with.

There are still men scrubbing blood out from under their fingernails when they eventually crown her queen, not unlike the time she had sat in that very audience and watch a false crown almost be set upon the brow of her closest kin.

Her crown is real though.

It is far heavier than the paper crowns she had played with as a child, and then the crowd cheered for her, their queen, she could not stop from imagining when she stood in that very place as an innocent young girl.

She is far from innocent now.

If she closed her eyes she could almost see it- the nearly empty room, her father’s jacket draped over her shoulders, her brother sitting on one of those chairs proclaiming out her accomplishments as queen, while the orange construction paper crown slips down over his eyes.

Things are different now for one the room is full of people, her father’s coat is buried with him stained with blood from the war, and her brother gone as far as she knew.

There had been no news, and she had not dared to ask for fear of hearing the worst.

Though she was not sure what of the two answers in her mind could be considered the _worst_.

She silently vows to ask David the next day when the celebrations have died down.

She never ends up getting the chance to the next day, and when she finally does the answer isn't at all what she had hoped. 

Years later a painter will recreate the picture of her coronation years later.

She’ll look at the reflection of herself and not have to wonder why her eyes looked so sad in that moment.

Though the little boy that tugs at her sleeve won’t understand.

His fingers drumming against her skin in a sign of urgency, he’ll ask why they made her look so sad, tell her in his child-like voice that she should demand they redo it and paint her with a smile.

But she won’t.

She’ll just scoop the child up into her arms, as she had done when he was new to this world, and he’s squawk and laugh as children are known too, hands going up to clutch at his head where a paper crown rests of his brow.

“Now, little Jack, where did you get that,” she’ll ask, plucking it from his head like a joke, and placing it on her own as she had done many years before.

"I made it," he'll say proudly, "king's are supposed to have crowns!"

"That they are." 

 

 

 


End file.
